


The Worst Six Days

by i_am_snowils_admiral



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Gen, General Angst, Gore, I don't know how but I'm going to pull a happy ending out of this, Parental!Royed, parental!royal, shockingly not a death fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-09 06:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17996282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_snowils_admiral/pseuds/i_am_snowils_admiral
Summary: When a simple kidnapping turns to tragedy, Roy Mustang is left trying to pick up all the pieces left behind. But when it rains, it pours, and every day seems to bring something worse.





	1. Chapter 1

It was quiet in the Mustang household that morning. Sunlight streamed lazily in through windows recently cleaned by the rain. The calm warmth of the air in the room was tinged with the smell of freshly cut grass.

Roy Mustang sat on a large, comfortable-looking couch in the center of the room. His feet propped up on the table and sunlight illuminating the book he held balanced on his knees, he would have looked the picture of content, if not for the large bags under his eyes, or the streaks of silver which had, just the week before, not been present in his jet-black hair.

Edward Elric lay curled on the couch next to him, head resting lightly on the older man’s leg. Mustang stroked his hair absently as the boy dozed. There was a possessiveness in the action that had not been there up until late. Turning from the book he wasn’t really paying attention to, Mustang studied the boy carefully, finally allowing himself to speak.

“Ed,” he said softly, in case the boy was truly asleep. Goodness knew he needed it.

“Mmmf-” the boy replied, barely acknowledging him with a grunt.

“Is Al speaking to you yet?” the Colonel asked.

Ed curled into himself uncomfortably and Mustang halted briefly in his hair stroking, frowning down at his now agitated subordinate.

“Not really,” Ed admitted at last. “I think he may have said ‘good morning’ to me earlier, but I might be wrong.” He seemed to droop a little. “He’s very angry.”

Mustang didn’t say anything, acknowledging the boy’s answer with a gentle “hmm” before resuming his stroking. In truth, he was mad at the boy as well. He was frightfully angry at him, in fact. And yet, his relief had won out at the end. He couldn’t stay angry forever. Perhaps it wasn’t right to be angry anyway. He wondered briefly, if he had been in Ed’s position, whether he would have acted differently.

He could hardly believe it had only been a week ago that everything had seemed so normal.

~~~~~

Colonel Roy Mustang burst through the door with all the force of a rebellious teen. He had gained that force through prolonged exposure to the only rebellious teen he knew- Edward Elric. The boy in question followed closely by his side, eyes darting in a frantic attempt to find something to hit.

Alphonse Elric had been missing for three days, and Edward was starting to drive Mustang up the wall. He had worried so incessantly that Mustang had assigned more men than was necessary to the case just to shut the kid up. It definitely wasn’t because he was also worried about Alphonse. It was just that Ed’s nagging was starting to get to him. Right.

The hallway inside the building was long, with a number of doors leading off into adjacent rooms. They didn’t have time to check all the rooms thoroughly as they passed by, so Mustang motioned for a few of his men to peel off into groups as they moved down the hallway. They could cover more ground this way.

So far, Al’s kidnappers had yet to make an appearance, and Roy was beginning to worry that the building was abandoned. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d been too late to catch kidnappers.

When they were about halfway down the hall, Havoc opened a door to their left and paled. He motioned Mustang inside while simultaneously assuring the older Elric that Al was not inside. Leaving Ed to continue in his search, Mustang pushed his way past his subordinate and into the room. 

It was completely covered in transmutation circles. Papers flew everywhere and vials of suspicious-looking substances lay cracked and dripping on the concrete. In the corner, a cage held the corpse of what looked suspiciously like a chimera, though Roy was glad to note that it appeared to have never been human. The kidnappers, now confirmed as alchemists, had apparently left in a hurry.

Roy picked some of the papers off the ground reluctantly, scanning the alchemic research. Some of it was encoded, but not very well, and Roy’s sense of foreboding deepened as he realized that he recognized some of the symbols.

“Colonel,” Hawkeye called from behind him. Her voice was strangely formal, but as Mustang turned around the reason became very clear. Fuhrer King Bradley stood in the doorway, reviewing the contents of the room with a look of mild interest.

Roy immediately jumped into a salute, mind spinning. Why was the Fuhrer here? Despite how much effort Roy himself had put into this particular mission, that was because Alphonse was involved. He at least had a reason to go over the top on something that ordinarily would be a relatively standard operation. But the Fuhrer? Bradley didn’t have any connection with Alphonse, to Roy’s knowledge. He had no reason to, even though Al was Ed’s younger brother. In all his time in the military, Roy had never known the Fuhrer to show any particular interest in those who were not under his command.

“Colonel Mustang! Please be at ease,” the Fuhrer said, noticing Roy’s stiff salute at last. “I understand that young Alphonse is missing, and I wanted to come see the situation myself. I have heard rumors that he was kidnapped by alchemists, after all, and I would hate for something horrible to happen.”

“Of course, sir,” Roy agreed, mind still reeling. “We are doing our best here to put together a picture of what happened. We have found plenty of evidence of illegal experiments, but as of yet we have found neither the alchemists themselves, nor any sign of Alphonse.”

The Fuhrer nodded absently, surveying the room again with that strange air of polite interest, as if he were observing the design of the room as opposed to the inhuman experiments that had taken place within it.

“I would be interested, Colonel Mustang, if you could enlighten me on-” but he never got to reveal what he would have liked to be enlightened on, because in that moment, a scream pierced its way into the room, freezing the occupants in a moment of confusion and horror.

Mustang paled. “Ed,” he murmured, because even though he had never heard Edward scream, he knew by some strange instinct that it had been him. He also knew that there was only one thing that could have possibly brought such a sound from the boy.

Abandoning all pretenses of respect and subordination, Roy pushed his way past the Fuhrer and sprinted his way down the hall and towards the hysterical screams of his youngest subordinate.

~~~~~

*A few minutes before*

As soon as Colonel Mustang turned into the open doorway, Ed quickened his pace and practically raced down the hallway, throwing doorways open and sparing the rooms beyond no more than the passing glance that was necessary to determine that Alphonse was not inside.

At this point, the kidnappers seemed to be gone, and judging by what his cursory glances had told him about the contents of each room, Ed wasn’t sure whether to be frustrated or relieved that he had yet to find Alphonse in this place.

He was nearing the end of the hallway, and the manic worry that had been eating away at his heart since the morning he discovered Alphonse’s absence intensified. He was the older brother, dammit! This wasn’t supposed to happen to Al. What would he do, if Al were not there? This building had been the closest they’d had to a lead.

He had at least hoped to find the kidnappers. He had been itching to beat someone up for days, and the fact that his sparring partner was missing didn’t help to calm him. He had tried sparring briefly with Mustang, but it hadn’t been the same. As annoying as the man was, Ed was mostly joking when he said that he dreamed of planting a fist in his face, and anyway it was hard to take his anger out on someone whose eyes were ringed by the same worry-induced dark circles that decorated his own face. Ed had never considered the fact that Mustang may actually care for Alphonse, but now that he thought about it, he was surprised that it hadn’t occurred to him before. Alphonse had a way of pushing his way into anyone’s heart.

He was nearing the last doorway, and something about it made him slow. It didn’t look any different than the others- it, too, was made of a dark, blank metal, and seemed to ooze dreariness- but there was a strange feeling that came with the door. For a moment, Ed’s mind flashed back to the moment when he first faced his own house after the transmutation, the study’s door emanating waves of despair and forbidden horrors, or even the moment he descended to the basement of the Tucker household, but he pushed the thought to the back of his mind, attributing his apprehension to the fact that if Alphonse wasn’t here, he wasn’t anywhere. Taking a deep breath, he slowly pushed the door forward and stepped inside.

It was the blood that he noticed first. There was so much of it, sprayed across the room as if it had come from a hose. There were bodies, too. Men and women in lab coats, stretched across the ground in various positions and missing various appendages, as if they had all simultaneously been mutilated and then left to bleed out.

Ed’s breath caught nervously in his throat, because there was only one being that he knew of that was capable of ripping away so much at the same time, and it was not a being he wanted anywhere near his little brother ever again, unless it was to give his body back.

He forced himself to walk forwards, to where he now saw that there was a center to the seemingly haphazard placement of the carnage. Bits of steam came off of it, and a part of Ed’s mind that wasn’t being taken over in panic noted that this transmutation couldn’t have been more than a few hours old.

He stepped over a body, glancing down at it briefly to see that it was a middle-aged man missing his left arm. His right arm was stretched out, and Ed noticed that the man had used his own blood to trace letters.

“We trie-” the letters spelled, ending in a smudged bit of blood that must have been another letter. A part of Ed thought that this was a rather strange thing to do with one’s last moments, but concern for Al pushed the thought away, and focused him once more towards the center of the circle.

He had been avoiding looking at it, as if not acknowledging what he had already seen in his peripheral vision would somehow make the facts change. But as he approached the center of what was most definitely a human transmutation circle, he forced himself to see and recognize the twisted, cracked, and warped piece of metal that had up until recently housed the soul of his little brother. Then, with even greater effort, he forced himself to look at the mutilated body that lay inside it.

It was barely recognizable as human. The skin had either been torn away or had never existed, and organs that had long since stilled were visible from the outside. Blood pooled around it, partially caked to the cold metal floor, reaching almost to the edge of Ed’s boots. Beneath what could technically be called a skull, Ed could see a section of armor with a blood seal scrawled onto it. Through the seal ran a long, gaping crack.

It took Ed several moments to process what he was seeing. There was something important about this, he knew, but at some point, his brain had forgotten why this particular image was so significant.

The armor, the body, the circle. It all meant something. He just didn’t know what. And so, Ed stood before the scene for a little while, waiting for his brain to make connections. He felt rather distanced from the moment. As if he weren’t really there, and was instead watching himself as his body coolly observed the carnage. And then, as if he had suddenly and unexpectedly been forced back into his own body, he had a clear, world-shaking thought that brought everything back into perspective.

That’s my baby brother.

As the force of the epiphany hit him, Ed’s legs began to shake. If he really thought about it, his whole body was shaking. It was hard to breathe.

That’s my baby brother.

He was on his knees. When had that happened? Hadn’t he just been standing? And what had happened to his breath? Was he breathing at all? Was he breathing too quickly?

That’s Alphonse.

Finally, crouching down in front of the mangled body, digging his fingers into the partially dried blood that pooled before him, Edward Elric drew in one, shuddering breath, and screamed.

~~~~~

Roy couldn’t remember the last time he had paid a smaller amount of attention to his surroundings. Throughout most of his life, he had tried to be fully aware of what was going on around him, something that had served him well in his attempts to rise to the top of the military, not to mention survival in Ishval.

Now, though, all he could focus on were the screams of his subordinate- no, the child under his protection- as he sprinted down the hall towards him.

Reaching the final door and identifying it as the source of the screams, Roy burst in with the intention of frying whoever had just committed whatever atrocity had pulled such a sound from the older Elric. He had to stop as soon as he entered the doorway, however, when he realized that no one but Ed was in the room. No one alive, at least.

Ed was collapsed in the center of a transmutation circle, facing something that Roy could not see but could certainly imagine. Around the boy were multiple corpses in various states of mutilation, and Roy couldn’t help but wonder if, sans the corpses, this had been what the Elric’s basement had looked like the night they attempted to bring their mother back.

Forcing himself away from the horrific questions in his mind, Roy pushed his feet forward, approaching the hysterical boy in front of him. He hadn’t recognized that he was running, but reached Ed’s side much faster than he would have expected. Vaguely, he was aware of gasps behind him as Hawkeye and his other subordinates entered the room. Grasping Ed by the shoulders, focusing only on the fact that he had to get Ed away from all that blood, Roy pulled him harshly back, and saw the abomination in the center of the circle himself for the first time.

If it hadn’t been for Ed, Mustang would have thrown up right then and there. The body couldn’t have been called human, and even the parts that seemed vaguely humanoid were warped and impaled on pieces of the armor. The face, or what Roy assumed would have been its face, was twisted into as close an expression of agony as the mangled features would allow.

Just as the bile began to rise in his throat, though, Ed kicked back against his grip, exchanging hysterical, terrified screams for desperate, angry ones, fighting Roy’s arms with the determination of a dying man. Roy quickly shifted his attention to the boy he could help, burying the overwhelming grief and horror over Alphonse deep inside him, where he could deal with it at a later time. He held Edward’s arms tightly, pulling slightly in an attempt to distance him even further from the body. It was almost pitiful, how badly he fought back. Despite the desperation, the older Elric seemed to have lost whatever strength had pushed him for so long.

If Roy were being honest with himself, he would acknowledge that the sight was terrifying. Edward had always been a pillar of stubbornness, barely ever letting a shred of weakness show through, even while injured. Roy’s staff had learned that the best way to ask Edward if he was hurt was to push him and see if he fell over, or started dripping blood. This child in front of him, lost in a grief-induced haze of terror, grasping desperately at the ground in an attempt to hold onto the remains of his last tie to sanity, didn’t resemble the Edward he knew at all. The screams that had first attracted him to the room began to hitch, as the initial shock wore off and tears began to roll down the boy’s cheeks.

In a burst of adrenaline-induced strength, Roy managed to pull Edward back from the body entirely, twisting him around until Ed’s face was buried in his military coat. The grasping hands latched on automatically to the sides of Roy’s jacket, and the sobs that had just made themselves known began to devolve into panicky gasps. The boy’s breaths came quick and fast, and he clung to Roy as if he’d die if he let go, trembling so hard that Mustang had a hard time holding him close.

Mustang’s team watched in shock and horror as Ed hyperventilated his way into unconsciousness, collapsing against Roy at last in a limp, exhausted heap. Roy didn’t have the courage to check if the boy really had passed out, or if he had simply lost the ability to translate his emotions into actions, but his breathing was easier, and he wasn’t shaking anymore.

Cradling the suddenly very small boy in his arms, Roy stood up slowly, looked wordlessly at his subordinates with an expression of confusion and heartache, then carried Edward through the hallway, and out of the building to where a military car was waiting to take them away from the horrific scene.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some more pain, everyone! Your comments are bringing me life.

Edward stayed unconscious the entire way to Mustang’s apartment. He stayed unconscious when Roy carried him up the steps and through the door, and even when Mustang placed him down in the guest bedroom. Getting Ed home and onto a bed was about as far as Mustang had planned, so for a moment he just stood there, swaying in shock and indecision.

Alphonse was gone.

Roy had lost people before. He had watched his comrades die in Ishval, had lost good soldiers in the field, and had experienced his fair share of family tragedies. Despite his familiarity with loss, though, the sudden and unexpected absence of Alphonse Elric cut through his heart more effectively than any stray bullet.

At some point, unbeknownst to him, and against his better judgment, the two boys he had taken under his care had become precious to him. He didn’t quite understand how, and he didn’t quite understand why, but he knew that the Elric brothers had become just as fixed a presence in his life as Hughes or Hawkeye. More so, in certain ways. 

There were many people who Roy would consider to be under his _protection_ , but Ed and Al had somehow become the only two to be under his _care_. It was a strange distinction, but he felt in his heart that it was important in some way.

Sighing heavily, Mustang allowed himself to fall into a chair by Ed’s bedside, watching the exhausted expression of his unconscious subordinate. For now, he knew, he would have to ignore the pain. He would have to dismiss the gaping hole in his heart where Alphonse had been, and he would have to deny his own grief. While Alphonse had been important to him, he had been vital to Edward. In all of Mustang’s own grief, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to match what would inevitably be Edward’s own crushing sorrow. He would have to stand firm, and be solid ground for Edward to stand on as he worked through the loss of his brother.

As his own anguish settled, an unwanted question came to mind. What was going to happen now? He had made the decision to not take the boy to the hospital because he knew that that would have upset Ed even more, and what he really needed was to be around people he knew. Should he call the Rockbells? That seemed reasonable; the two automail mechanics seemed to understand the Elric brothers to an extent that even he wasn’t privy to.

Then again, the Rockbells loved Alphonse as well, and, unlike him, they weren’t able to bury their grief for Edward’s benefit. They would weep and mourn, and if there was one thing that Roy knew, it was that the sight of Winry in tears would push Edward even further over the edge than he already was.

He ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. Edward would have to stay here, he supposed. He could stay for a few days, to let the shock wear off, and then when he started coming back to himself, Roy would call the Rockbells. Better that Ed not feel pressured to recover. He would push himself to appear strong, Roy knew, to comfort Winry. Better that he have a chance to fall apart before that happened.

Mustang was contemplating this, and wondering whether he should tell the Rockbells anyway and just request that they give Ed some time alone before coming to Central, when he realized that Ed’s eyes were open. The boy was staring at the ceiling in confusion, clearly having no idea where he was. Mustang’s youngest subordinate turned his head slightly, staring at Mustang with such an open look of bewilderment that Mustang felt that he must have completely forgotten the events that had led to this situation.

It would come, though, he knew. He had experienced this temporary amnesia himself. The calm before the storm, when a person was unsure of whether something had been a simple nightmare or a horrific truth. He tensed, slightly, wondering if he’d have to hold the boy down when the realization finally arrived.

As it turned out, he didn’t need to interfere. After a moment of continued, blissful ignorance, Ed’s eyes widened in understanding, flashing with such depth of emotion that Roy honestly feared that the boy would shatter right in front of him, and then went horribly, impossibly dull.

If anything would ever be as horrible as seeing the remains of Alphonse Elric, it was this vision before him. Edward appeared to be completely unresponsive, and for a moment Roy feared that he had simply died. But no- he was breathing still. It was slow, and almost imperceptible, but air still made its way in and out of the boy’s lungs. Edward seemed almost comatose. He was alive, and awake, but entirely unaware.

Roy suddenly wished very fervently that Riza or Maes would walk suddenly through the door and provide a solution to this. Hysterical tears he could handle, grief-induced rage he could handle, but this? This complete loss of self, this dulling of senses, this extinguished flame of Edward’s eyes that had once burned so brightly? This he could not handle. He could provide no support for someone who had vacated their body so thoroughly.

In a slight haze, he exited the guest bedroom, unable to look at Edward’s blank eyes any longer. He stood at the kitchen counter and categorized the fruits sitting in a bowl on the table according to size. He noticed absently that he had put the plates into the drying rack incorrectly, and fiddled with a dishtowel that hung over the sink.

After several moments, he bent over with a gasp, as if someone had punched him in the stomach. Had he lost both of them? Had Edward been so tied to his brother that he was incapable of existing without him? Unchecked tears welled in his eyes, but he fought them, squeezing his eyes shut with ferocity and denial. No, this wasn’t the end. Edward could overcome this. He, Roy, could overcome this. Just because Edward had chosen to abandon consciousness today did not mean that he would do so tomorrow. Grief expressed itself differently in different people, after all. They would survive, and Edward’s flame would burn once more. Differently, of course, but it would burn.

After a moment, Roy noticed that despite his attempts, tears had still leaked through his tightly shut eyelids. They were tears for Alphonse, he realized. Tears for the loving child who came so dutifully behind his older brother and, despite his tragic situation and unfeeling armor, gave off more warmth than any person Roy had ever known. His steadfast trust and understanding, his tolerance for the trying people he spent his days with, and his unending patience and strength in the face of horrific suffering would never again make an appearance in Roy’s office. Roy would never again turn from his banter with Ed to watch Al and Riza greet each other in that respectful and affectionate way so unique to themselves, and he would never again rap his knuckles on Al’s helmet in his own expression of affection.

The only image he would ever have of Alphonse’s human body was the mutilated corpse that had appeared in the transmutation circle. There would be no way to know if the younger Elric outgrew his older brother. There would never be any celebratory feast, or long-awaited embraces. Edward would never give Alphonse a cat, which Roy knew he had been secretly planning to do when they got their bodies back.

The sheer weight of what had been destroyed hit him suddenly, and he gripped the countertop tightly in fear that he would collapse to the ground. The Elric brothers were no more, and it was his job to salvage what precious little remained.

Roy wiped tears from his eyes and took a deep breath. There was no telling when Ed would return to them. If he were to be strong for the boy, this would have to be his final expression of grief. He wasn’t allowed to mourn, he reminded himself. Edward needed him. Even if he would almost assuredly never be Ed’s military commander again, Roy vowed silently that he would never let Ed out of his care. No matter what happened, even if Ed never truly woke up and remained forever unresponsive in his guest room, Edward Elric was now his responsibility.  
~~~  
It got easier, he decided. It got easier to look Ed in the eyes every time he came into the room to find him still staring blankly at the ceiling. It got easier to coax the boy into a semi-upright position so he could spoon-feed him broth. It got easier to sit quietly by his bedside and go through the paperwork Riza had brought for him, numbing any feeling with banality.

It had barely been one day, but it felt like a lifetime. The sun had set on the day that Alphonse Elric died, and risen on a day without him. It would do the same tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

It was almost funny, how quickly everything could change. Just a few days before, and Roy would have denied any rumor of caring for either Elric boy as anything more than subordinates, even with Al not being in the military. Now, however, he felt that he could have admitted to the Fuhrer himself that Edward was more precious to him than any promotion he may have sought after by recruiting him. That Alphonse was as important as any family member. That he would burn down everything he’d ever built in his life if it meant restoring these two random country children to the life and freedom that had been taken from them.

Ed shifted in front of him, and Roy jerked his head up to observe the movement. The boy had moved just slightly, but enough to be purposeful. Enough to be conscious. Slowly, and unwillingly, Ed’s eyes focused, and flitted to the side to connect with the Colonel’s own unblinking gaze.

“Hey,” Mustang said, quietly, speaking only because he felt he had to. He reached out and stroked the top of Ed’s head gently, brushing his unruly bangs to the side. He’d never done that before. It was such a blatant show of affection. The rules were different now, though. Everything had broken down.

“Hey,” Ed replied, hollowly. He seemed to just be echoing Roy’s own voice, not comprehending the meaning behind anything. He twisted and curled up on his side, peering out at his superior officer through flesh and automail fingers. “How long have you been there?”

“A while,” Roy replied. “We lost you there for a bit. I wanted to make sure you weren’t alone.”

“Why not?”

Roy hesitated. There was no emotion behind the question, nothing to convey to him what Ed really wanted to know. “I just wanted to be here. I didn’t want to be alone, either.”

It was an excuse, he knew, but he didn’t want to explain to Ed how much it frightened him to see him like that, how terrified he was that he’d walk into the room and find that Ed had simply stopped breathing. He’d heard of such things happening.

Ed didn’t seem to care about his answer, though. “What day is it?”

“It’s Thursday.” They had found Alphonse on a Wednesday.

“Hm,”

That seemed to be all that Ed felt like saying, which Roy was fairly content with. It was better than before. It was better than that terrible, empty numbness that seemed to come over him.

Somehow, he coaxed Ed out of bed and to the kitchen table. He made eggs and toast, which seemed wrong, somehow, being so normal. It was two in the afternoon, anyway. Whatever.

Ed didn’t say anything, and Roy didn’t try and push him. They sat in absolute silence, eating mechanically. Roy was somewhat surprised that Ed was eating at all. It was all he himself could do to shove the food down his own throat.

They stayed that way the rest of the afternoon. Roy, wandering around his apartment, cleaning sometimes, doing paperwork others. Ed, just existing. Mustang fixed dinner at some point, or at least something resembling dinner, and they both forced that down as well.

When the sun had been down for some time, Roy casually suggested that Ed go to bed, and the boy dragged himself listlessly down the hallway and into the spare bedroom, collapsing onto the bed in something better described as unconsciousness rather than sleep.

Roy filled out paperwork until he fell asleep at his kitchen table. He woke early the next morning to find Riza Hawkeye shaking him awake, and for one, glorious moment he convinced himself that it had all been a nightmare after falling asleep at his desk. But then he looked around at his own house, and saw the soul-deep grief in his lieutenant’s eyes and knew that it was real.

“Investigations needs you to come and identify some of the circles from the other day,” Hawkeye told him. “It shouldn’t take long. You can come back in under an hour.”

He nodded wordlessly to her and pulled his coat off the back of his chair, stifling a yawn and noting absently that he had left his umbrella at the lab where they had found Alphonse. He stuck his head into Ed’s room, briefly, to confirm that he was still sleeping and most likely wouldn’t be waking any time soon. He briefly considered asking Hawkeye to stay with the boy, but knew that it would probably be pointless. And he wasn’t the only one who had work to do. Amestris stopped for no man, or boy, even if Roy himself felt that the world had shattered with Alphonse’s blood seal.

The circle that investigations needed identified was Al’s blood seal. It had been copied down in many pages of the alchemists’ notes, with various coded comments and theories written around it. The entire situation seemed detached from reality. Roy had almost forgotten that Alphonse’s physical state was a secret from most of the military. That many of his coworkers would not have realized what the wrecked body in the lab had been. He told them some half-truth about theoretical circles and soul transfusion. It was more of a whole truth than a half one, and the investigators seemed more interested in the idea than he had intended for them to be, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

He wished Hughes were there. His best friend was due to arrive in the city some time in the next few hours. He wasn’t needed for the case, but had instantly cut his family vacation short when he had heard the fate of the younger Elric. Hawkeye must have told him. Or someone else from his team. 

The entire trip seemed to take forever and no time at all. When Roy found himself back in the car with Hawkeye on the way home, he had a moment of disorientation in which he couldn’t remember if they’d left his house an hour ago or just a few minutes before.

His apartment was just as silent as when he had left it, and he marveled at how quickly the space could turn from comforting to foreboding. He dropped his coat on the table and stared at the wall for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Finally, he forced his feet forward and went to check on Ed.

The room was empty.

Impeccably neat, to be exact. As if the bed had never been slept in. As if he hadn’t spent hours sitting in a chair watching his youngest subordinate waste away in oblivion. The only thing out of place was a thick envelope left on the desk. A pen, hastily discarded, sat next to it.

Roy felt vaguely disconnected as he walked towards the envelope. He knew, immediately, what it was, but he refused to accept that. He needed proof.

On the front of the envelope were the words Roy Mustang scrawled in Ed’s distinctive handwriting. His fingers brushed against the words as he picked up the letter. The words smudged.

Still wet, his brain told him. It was recent.

He unfolded the paper inside anyway, hands strangely not shaking. He actually laughed as he read the first line. By the time you read this I’ll probably be dead. So unoriginal. And Ed called himself a genius.

Then, time seemed to come sharply back into focus, and the fuzzy feeling that had gripped him since he first saw the empty room was banished violently in lieu of absolute panic. He dropped the letter to the ground, not bothering to read further, and fled the room.

The ink was still wet, he reminded himself. He hasn’t been gone long.

He knew, somehow, instinctively, that Ed wasn’t in the house. There was plenty there that could kill him. Hell, Ed didn’t need anything but his own two hands if he wanted to kill himself, but somehow Mustang knew that he wouldn’t be there. He practically flung himself out the door and back into the street, not entirely surprised to find that Hawkeye was still outside his building.

“He’s gone, Riza,” was all he could bring himself to say, then took off down the street.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, this fic is not finished. I try to make a point of not publishing things before they're finished, but I've been sitting on this for at least two years if not more, and I want to at least get the first chapter out. I'm hoping that having the first chapter published will encourage me to write faster (and I will admit, comments will help with that motivation) but in general, don't expect this to update regularly or particularly any time soon. There's a possibility I'll finish it in a week, and there's a possibility I'll finish it in the next two years. It will probably be around 6 chapters long (don't quote me on that, though). I love hearing what you think, though, so please leave a comment and let me know!


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